Editor’s Note: This essay is the third excerpt from the author’s doctoral project titled “Reaching Generation Z with the Gospel at a Christian University through Faith Integration, Radical Hospitality, and Missional Opportunities,” completed as part of the Doctor of Ministry program at Knox Theological Seminary. The content has been edited to adhere to MTC’s guidelines. For the full dissertation, please refer to this provided link, and read his second excerpt here .
Jesus Christ the Son of God [is] the final and decisive Word of God to men; that in Him alone is the certainty of salvation given to men; that this Gospel must be preached to every living human soul.[1]
Christianity and missions. The two are inseparably linked … The command to go forth with the good news [is] the very heart of the faith.[2]
Introduction
In this chapter, I will explain how I fulfill in part the third part of PBA’s mission statement, “extending hands,” by offering a unique opportunity to my students to promote scripture in the Peruvian Andes. This short-term mission trip fulfills their workship requirement for the entire academic year and gives them the opportunity to have a “hands-on, active approach to learning” about missions by actively practicing evangelism.[3] It also allows me to model how to share their faith, “something that is not being modeled for Gen Z.”[4] For the last three years, a group of students has accompanied me on a ten-day trek through the Peruvian Andes, where we promote scripture distribution among the indigenous Quechua. It is an adventuresome trek featuring long walks during the day and freezing cold nights camped in tents. We accompany our host family, the Yanacs, whom I have known for almost twenty-five years. They are full-time missionaries with Wycliffe Bible translators. [5] Together with members of AWI, a local Quechua evangelistic organization, we visit a half dozen villages along a unique trekking circuit every year, distributing Bibles and Bible storybooks translated into the Quechua’s heart language. [6] In what follows, I will explain the tedious process of how the Huaylas Quechua translation came to be, how I became involved in scripture promotion, the necessity for foreign missions, the effectiveness of short-term mission trips, and why such trips should be a part of any leader’s ministry at a Christian University, for the sake of their Gen Z students.
How It All Started in Ancash, Peru: “Trabajo en Equipo”[7]
In 1964, Wycliffe Bible Translators began a program to translate the Bible into the Huaylas dialect of Quechua, the language spoken in Peru’s Callejon de Huaylas, the huge valley that splits the Andes into two separate ranges, the Cordillera Blanca and the Cordillera Negra. Two women, Helen Larsen and Margie Levengood, began the tedious translation work. In 1970, just six years after the work had begun, a devastating earthquake occurred off the coast of Peru. In what has been called the worst natural disaster in the Western Hemisphere during the twentieth century, the earthquake unleashed an enormous landslide. The rocks and ice that slid off Nevado Huascaran, Peru’s highest mountain, swept through the village of Yunguay, killing 70,000 people.[8] The two translators were accused of being witches and blamed “for having brought a new religion to the valley.”[9] They continued to work for several more years until both left Peru. In the years that followed, new people joined the team, including linguists, literacy specialists, and others who worked in support of the translators. Three Quechua-speaking Peruvian nationals, Timoteo Trejo, Prospero Colonia, and Leopoldo Rodriguez, also joined the team and assisted the translators with the readability of the translation.
The Huaylas version of the New Testament was finally dedicated in 2007, some forty-three years after the work had begun. Several years later, the Old Testament translation and translations of the entire Bible were completed in two other Quechua dialects spoken in the region. We now have translations of the entire Bible in the three dialects of Quechua spoken in the Ancash region of Peru.
How I Became Involved in Scripture Promotion in the Peruvian Andes
In 1997, Roy Seals, an independent Baptist missionary and life-long friend, asked me if I would pray about accompanying him on a two-week mission trip to Venezuela.[10] There were four missionary families he wanted to visit located in four different cities: Barquisimeto, Valencia, Nirgua, and Chajuraña. This last “city” was not a city by Western standards but an Indian village located deep in the Amazon Rain Forest. There, the Vernoy family—Clint, Rita, and their four children — lived among and ministered to a tribe of Yekwana Indians. To get there, we flew from Caracas to Puerto Ayacucho, on the Colombia-Venezuela border. We then boarded a six-seat, single-engine Cessna 206, operated by Misson Aviation Fellowship, for the ninety-minute flight to Chajuraña, landing on a field that the Indians had cleared with machetes from the jungle overgrowth. Every time I have told this story, I conclude it by saying: “When Roy first explained to me what this trip involved, I did what any Bible-believing, KJV-only, red-blooded, flag-waving American male would do. I got down on my knees, and looked up towards heaven … into my wife’s eyes and I asked her for permission.” She said “yes,” and several months later, in early 1998, I found myself in the jungle, with Roy and the Vernoy family.
We took part in various activities that included swimming in the Chajura River, accompanying a group of Yekwana in canoes on a hunting trip, a fishing expedition for three-foot-long worms in the river bottom, and a village-wide feast to honor us on our last night.
In evening, while resting in hammocks in the Vernoys’s hut, Roy said, “If you think this has been a great trip, next year we are planning on hiking through the Andes Mountains in Peru to take portions of Scripture to unreached Quechua.” A year later, we were hiking on the Santa Cruz trail with two dozen other guys from the States on what became my first Andes Trek. We walked for six days, camping each evening at a different campsite. Most were at altitudes above 13,000 feet. During one day’s hike, we crossed the continental divide at Punta Union (15,675 feet). Two dozen burros and their arrieros (burro managers) carried all of the heavier gear. Each day, we stopped in a village along the route where we were able to hand out portions of scripture in both Spanish and Huaylas Quechua. The New Testament translation had not been completed in 1999, the year of this first trek. When it was over, I was physically exhausted. Back home I stepped on the bathroom scale and realized I had lost ten pounds. I promised myself I’d never do this again.
Fortunately, God is patient with our foolishness and has a sense of humor. Two years later I was back in Ancash County, Peru, hiking on a different route with a different group of men and women from the States. On this trip, our hosts regularly featured a nightly showing of “The Jesus Film” in the Huaylas Quechua dialect in every village where we camped. [11] We also had more books of the New Testament translated to distribute, including the Gospel of John.
Over the past twenty-four years, I have trekked through the Peruvian Andes on scripture promotion treks a total of twenty times. I have come to know and love the group of dedicated, full-time missionaries and evangelists who live in Huaraz, making this outreach possible year-round. The ministry has grown from when we had very few portions of scripture in just one Quechua dialect to now having completed translations of the entire Bible in the three dialects spoken in this region.[12]
The guide who led us on that first trek in 1999, Adelid Yanac, was moved by this “group of twenty-five gringos from the States,” as he characterized us. That a bunch of Americans was willing to leave their comfort and spend a week in the inhospitable climate of the mountains to reach his people with the gospel was the motivation that led him to walk away from his position as a mountain guide and surrender for full-time missionary work. Adelid has led every Andes trek since.[13]
He married Rachel McDonald, a Wycliffe missionary who had moved from Ohio to Huaraz to teach the missionary kids (MKs) who were there with their parents, assisting in the Bible translations. The Yanacs helped form the local Quechua evangelistic organization, AWI, (Alli Willaqui – the “Good News Association”), which has largely taken over the work of scripture promotion and evangelization throughout the region.
The Effectiveness of Short-term Mission Trips
Adelid’s story—“from Mountain Guide to Evangelist-Trekker” —is not an uncommon after-effect of an Andes Trek. I have seen it happen again and again; participants return to the States and shortly thereafter, surrender to go to Bible college, or become involved in some line of ministerial work, including joining a translation project, becoming a pastor, missionary, teacher, evangelist, or join an organization involved in some form of kingdom ministry as a member of the support staff.
God uses many things to call men into full-time ministry, but something special occurs when a person goes on a short-term mission trip and is exposed to a different culture, speaking a different language, in a different part of the world. And if that place is in the Developing World, in an “uttermost part” (Acts 1:8), as the King James version of the Bible describes those far-away and often forgotten regions, the effect of the gospel is often more profound. One reason is that the people in these backwaters are usually living in poverty, and are more receptive to the gospel. In the book of James, the writer explains this phenomenon, “Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?” (James 2:5). We have witnessed this phenomenon in Peru almost every year; the higher the elevation a village is located, the more receptive the people are to the gospel.[14]
I was curious why short-term mission trips are often so “reflective-effective,” and so I asked Roy Seals, who is now the Director of Global Faith Mission to help me understand this phenomenon. During an interview, he explained why short-term mission trips can be effective, and why they should be a part of any leader’s ministry at a Christian university. [15]
Fifty years ago, no one went on short-term mission trips. It is a relatively recent phenomenon in missions The first time my dad saw the mission field was when he left to go to the mission field. It is helpful you’re not just reading a book, but you can see, touch and taste, impacting all of our senses. It enables us to visualize what a people group is like. It’s done a lot for those who are serious about missions to make healthy decisions. It stimulates interest in missions for those who are not called to be career missionaries. It does create promoters of mission work through prayer and giving. For pastors who go, they come back and promote missions like never before. It has also helped the parents of the son or daughter who is going to a mission field. Yes, they can release their son or daughter to a foreign country for mission work. It is also important that students can become lifelong friends and partners in ministry. The negative side of this is that a short-term trip often doesn’t paint an accurate picture of cultural adaptation, living in another place, learning a foreign language fluently. But the positives far outweigh the negative.[16]
It is almost impossible to spend two weeks in a foreign country, ministering to a people group, and not be impacted deeply. But we must not forget, the people to whom we minister are the priority. It’s not about us. The command is to go and teach, baptize, and make disciples (Matt. 28:19).
Sowing the seed of the gospel—scripture promotion—is the first step in going and teaching. It is pioneering evangelism. Jesus emphasized the importance of the seed of the gospel and the ground upon which it fell by speaking about it in three of the gospels: Matthew 13, Luke 8, and Mark 4. Paul added his thoughts in 1 Cor. 3:6-7, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” We are the sowers. We have a small but important part to play in world evangelism. After a short-term mission trip is over, and a group returns, the majority of the work remains to be done. Lest we think too high mindedly of ourselves, Paul reminds us we are God’s servants, “So, neither he who plants, nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (1 Cor. 3:6-7).
In the Letter to the Church in Rome, Paul realized that planning a missionary journey to Spain would require prayer and logistical support from his followers. In this next section, I will explain the planning that goes into an Andes Trek including the logistical machine that gets us from south Florida to our first campsite in the mountains, how the students are chosen and raise their support, and finally share a narrative of the 2022 trek.
The Anatomy of an “Andes Trek”
It should be the goal of every professor teaching at a Christian college to model for their students how to share their faith.[17] One way to do this is to get involved in the mission program at the university where they teach. Missional involvement could be simply joining students who are already taking part in some missional work, either locally or abroad, and support them prayerfully and financially. Whatever the level of involvement, it is important for students to see their professors actively involved in the Great Commission in some form.
When we moved to south Florida in 2017, and I was hired six months later to teach chemistry at Palm Beach Atlantic University, I knew it would not be long before a group of my students and I would be hiking through Peru’s Andes Mountains on one of these potentially life-changing trips.
Planning an Andes Trek may appear to be a logistical nightmare. And if I were the only person making those plans, it would be. Fortunately, there are many people involved in planning a trip of this magnitude, always months in advance, both here in the States and in Peru.
Participants, in this case interested students, are interviewed by the two student co-leaders for the trip. Once accepted, they then have to raise their own support by writing letters to their home churches, asking mom and dad, working jobs after school, and other, creative means. PBA often makes mission scholarships available to students to defray the cost, which is usually around two-thousand dollars. Months before departure from the U.S., the group meets on a regular basis to discuss progress in raising funds, to go over the eight-page guide and checklist I prepared after the first trek in 1999, to make sure everyone’s passport is up-to-date, and most importantly, to pray. Plane tickets have to be purchased for the round-trip flights from south Florida to Lima, Peru’s capital city. In-country transportation from Lima to Huaraz and then from Huaraz to wherever we are starting the trek also has to be pre-arranged. Hotel rooms have to be booked. Food for a week has to be purchased. A cook and an assistant have to be hired to prepare meals during the trek. Our host family takes care of all of the logistics in-country, including mapping the area where we will hike, and the villages we will visit. My responsibility is to get our group to the airport in Lima and coordinate some of the details just mentioned. I have done this so many times, it now all works like a beautifully choreographed ballet.
In January 2019, I began to plan a trek for later that year, including several friends from my former church in New Jersey who were experienced and had been on previous Andes Treks. One student from PBA, along with the CM Global director, Mark Kaprive, accompanied us.[18] Although we had a smaller group that year, it was important to be able to introduce our host missionaries in Peru to the university’s mission program director.
In the following two years, COVID-19 made international travel impossible. Peru was the hardest hit country with the highest death rate of any other country in the world due to its poor infrastructure, lack of adequate healthcare, and informal economy that forces workers to move from one city to another in search of jobs.[19]
In 2022, we were finally able to plan a trip. In June, I was privileged to introduce a group of nine Palm Beach Atlantic University students to this ministry. We flew from Miami to Lima, where our bus was waiting for us in the parking lot at the airport for the eight-hour overnight ride that would take us along the Pan American Highway at sea level, then climb up the highway that snakes through the Cordillera Negra, topping out at the Conococha Pass at 13,350 feet until beginning its descent to Huaraz where we arrived early the next morning. After spending two days acclimatizing in Huaraz and a third day in Chacas, a village on the other side of the Cordillera Blanca, we boarded another bus and set out for Conopa Alta in the northern Conchucos Valley, where we would spend our first day doing missionary work.
Almost immediately after we arrived, curious locals began to filter into the field at the end of the village outside a school building where our tents had been pitched. A soccer game broke out: It was PBA vs. Peru—at 11,350 feet! (Miraculously, we won!) A group of musicians showed up playing traditional Quechua tunes. We all danced until it was time for dinner, our chef had whipped up an amazing three-course meal in a tent no larger than 150 square feet.
That evening, the entire village came out to our campsite to watch “The Jesus Film” in the drafty school building. After the movie, one of the AWI evangelists spoke to the crowd. Another played music on a harp and sang a folk tune in the Quechua’s native language. Finally, it was our turn. I spoke first in Spanish, explaining who we were and why we had come to Peru. Then, one by one, the rest of the group introduced themselves. Two students spoke Spanish. Adelid translated for the rest into Quechua. Then Conopa Alta’s mayor spoke, thanked us for coming, and finally called the names of the adult members from each family, who then picked their way through the crowd to the front of the room and were presented a Bible by one of the students.
“¡Qué Dios le bendiga!” (May God bless you!) each of us said as we placed a copy of the Bible into each person’s hands. “¡Muchas gracias!” was the reply, accompanied by joyful expressions on the faces of all. The meeting ended shortly thereafter. Exhausted, we turned in for the night.
After breakfast the next morning we departed on foot for what was to be a seven-hour hike; first down into the valley below us on a steep gravel strewn trail, then up through a mountain pass approaching 14,000 feet where we paused, some four hours later, for lunch and to take in the spectacular view. We continued down the other side to the second village on our circuit, Yegua Corral, where that evening, we repeated the program. The next day, after another grueling seven-hour walk, we arrived in the village of Carhuacasha, where we repeated the program for a third time and, subsequently, the next evening in the village of Ocshapampa.
We gave out approximately 450 Bibles in those four villages to a people group that God loves as much as He loves you and me. The Quechua in these villages had never seen a copy of the Word of God in their own language.
In 2023, another group of nine students and I repeated this performance along a different route in the Huaylas Valley. Similar to the trip a year earlier, we visited five villages. On the way back to Huaraz, our bus stopped a half-dozen times at schools in small villages that dotted the highway. We spoke to the teachers and students and gave them Bibles and Bible storybooks. On this trip, we were able to distribute almost 700 Bibles and 100 Bible story books.
In 2024, we are planning to return with ten students who have already gone through the interview process and have been accepted by CM Global. Half of them are either in the university’s pre-nursing or pre-healthcare track. Because of this, we are planning to add a medical component to the 2024 trek to include distributing reading glasses, vitamins, pain, and parasite medication and conducting vital signs checkups in the villages we will visit. A local registered nurse will accompany us. The emphasis will remain on scripture promotion, and we will conduct evening showings of “The Jesus Film” in every village, as we have always done, followed by a short worship service including music, a gospel message, and an invitation to receive Christ at the close.
Sometimes, I wonder how effective placing a Bible in a person’s hands can really be. I shouldn’t wonder. The Bible says, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12).
This is God’s work, and the members of AWI often return to the villages we visit on our short, ten-day trips. They conduct seminars to train local pastors and conduct meetings in the villages that have churches during the rainy season, when they are not hosting scripture promotion treks. And despite follow-up work on their part, along with the small group of evangelical Quechua pastors scattered throughout the region, there remains a dire need for Bible training.
Further complicating the situation is illiteracy. AWI has programs to teach people how to read and write. But owing to the vast distances, poor infrastructure, the lack of safe roads through the mountains, and a government that doesn’t care about the people living in these rural farming communities, illiteracy presents a huge obstacle to the Quechua understanding God’s word.
Reflections from Andes Trek 2022
Mark Kaprive, CM Global’s Director, commented on the effectiveness of the Andes Treks, saying,
The Peru trek gives PBA students an opportunity to experience a fresh vision of the awe of creation and God’s Kingdom life as they walk with their Creator and others in community on rocky and dusty trails to bring them God’s word and share the Living Water of Jesus in remote villages. Where people are seeking purpose, light and something more in their heart — AWI shows up! PBA students are impacted as they impact others and see the joy when they receive Bibles — God’s grand love story — in their own language for the first time.[20]
Mark has instituted a formal debriefing process for students who have been sent on any mission trip by PBA. The day after returning, they are interviewed and share their impressions. They follow up with short, written reports with their thoughts and reflections. Included below are excerpts from four students who went on Andes Trek 2022.
One thing God taught me on this trip was falling more in love with Him. In creation on the mountain tops and the valleys, you truly see His hand in the immense beauty, there really are no words for how great God is. I want to apply my love for Him each day. I want it to be evident in each word, in my actions and in my faith, I live out each day. I hope to seek God more and more each day and to fall in love with Him more and more each day … God never said this life would be easy, but He did say He’d be right by outside each step of the way. I honestly wanted to give up at one point on this trip. My body was exhausted, toes numb, feet blistered, and out of water, but I remembered that we are not only told that we can do all things through Christ who gives us strengthens us, also we are told that He takes all our burdens while we take up His light yoke.
God showed me a bit more of what it would be like to do missions in my future. I was able to ask people more direct questions about their beliefs and share my life for Jesus with them. I am so grateful for the ways that God has grown me through this experience. I also learned that I can start now to support missionaries and missions … Handing out a Bible that’s just been completed and translated in someone’s mother tongue for the first time has an impact on them of course- but also on you. I kept thinking of all the verse that have impacted me and spoken to me and change me. Now they get to read it themselves … Now families in Peru have access to the Bible in their language in their homes. Now it’s God who will be revealing Himself to them through His Word.
My yes is on the table for missions. I don’t really know where [God] wants me, but if it is oversees reaching the unreached then I am okay with that. Time with Him is irreplaceable and essential. It feeds me and I need it … God used wildly unqualified and misfit people from America to bring His word to people that have never seen it before. He took me, an out of shape, ill-equipped, poor Spanish speaking loser and gave me the privilege of being the one to hand His word to people for the first time. And in that process, He showed us the value of His word and the spiritual impact it has on the people it touches. We were guided by men in the village who were ultimately ordained by God in every step of our journey. He was the one who tested the ground for us and protected us on the narrow roads, the drop-off cliffs, and the freezing nights. He was the Good Shepard for the entire trip and His role didn’t change when we left the mountains. He was all of our strength, all of our provision, and all of our support and He still is. One man and his family desperately needed His support in the future. He is the only Christian in his community, and he needs some other worldly help to see change in his village.
When I think of Peru, I think of joy. There were so many highs that I experienced. There were lows too, but very little. All we did was pass out Bibles but it was so humbling because some of the villages we went to were untouched. I was giving the Word of God for the first time to somebody. He made me realize that sometimes I take the Bible for granted and go many days without even touching it. For these people they’ll be able to read it for themselves, in their language. What a gift that is! . . . I also want to continue to encourage the Christian family whether it be with money or letters I write. They opened my eyes to do missions in the future with nursing and I’ve never thought about that until now. . . One thing that was on my mind during the trip was that planting seeds is what makes some of the biggest impacts. We met a family one morning and learned that they are the only Christians in their village. . . The entire team never complained … It was crazy. People got sick, dizzy, tired but we all pushed through it. We were there for one reason, to plant seeds in the villages. Nothing else mattered.
Summary
In this chapter, I explained how both the students and I have the opportunity to fulfill PBA’s mission to “extend hands” through a unique missional opportunity in the Peruvian Andes. This trip grew out of my friendship with Global Faith Mission’s Director, Roy Seals and a decades’-long relationship with our host family, the Yanac’s in Peru. That first trip to Venezuela in 1998 was the trip that changed everything. It opened my eyes to the need for ongoing mission work in the Developing World, it offered me an opportunity to become personally involved in missions and now I have the opportunity to share this blessing with my students.
Their debriefs tell me they caught the importance of sharing their faith:
- “I was able to ask people more direct questions about their beliefs and share my life for Jesus with them.”
- “[God] took me, an out of shape, ill-equipped, poor Spanish speaking loser and gave me the privilege of being the one to hand His word to people for the first time.”
- “I was giving the Word of God for the first time to somebody … One thing that was on my mind during the trip was that planting seeds is what makes some of the biggest impacts … We were there for one reason, to plant seeds in the villages. Nothing else mattered.”
Not every professor at a Christian university will have the opportunity to lead a short-term mission trip with a group of students. Nevertheless, students need to see their professors are serious about sharing their faith. I think that it is more impactful if students can see evangelism modeled on a short-term mission trip and especially to an unreached people group in the Developing World.
Jesus said, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). Time is short. Eternity is long. People are waiting to hear the good news. The need is for more people to be willing to go and to take God’s word to them; to “extend hands.”
“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Luke 10:2).
[1] Stephen Neill, A History of Christian Missions (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), 417. The author is writing about the theological unanimity among participants at the Edinburgh Conference of 1910.
[2] Ruth A. Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 25.
[3] “The majority of Gen Z teens prefer a hands-on, active approach to learning.” Feed 2020 Research Report, “What We Know About Generation Z.” Feed – A OneHope Initiative, (.pdf document).
[4] “Fewer than 1 in 5 Christian parents in the U.S. believe the youth group their teen is attending is equipping them to talk about their faith with others,” Barna, Impact 360, “Gen Z,” 26.
[5] Ade & Rachel Yanac – Wycliffe Bible Translators.
[6] Sitio de AWI (awiperu.com).
[7] Trabajo en Equipo is Spanish for teamwork.
[8] “Ancash Earthquake of 1970,” Britanica, Ancash earthquake of 1970 | Andean, Magnitude 7.9 & Peru | Britannica.
[9] Rachel Yanac, narrator, “History of the Quechua Bible Translation, (5) Video | Facebook (I appear in this video around the 7:45-7:50 mark).
[10] Gregory J. Rummo, “God Forsaken – Not!” The View from the Grass Roots, (Salt Lake City: Millennial Mind Publishing, 2002), 250. The story of this first mission trip to Venezuela was published, along with several others, in Chapter 11, “Missionaries and Missionary Adventures,” of my first book. It is currently out of print, but used copies can be purchased from a variety of online booksellers.
Map 1. Courtesy of World Atlas, “Maps of Venezuela.” WorldAtlas.com/maps/Venezuela.
[11] The Jesus Film, A Cru Ministry, “A Christian Media Ministry Bringing Millions Face-to-Face with Jesus In Their Heart Language,” www.jesusfilm.org.
Map 2. “La Cordillera Blanca.” Courtesy of CordilleraBlanca.info/trekking.
[12] The three Quechua languages are Huaylas, Northern Conchucos and Southern Conchucos. They all differ enough to be considered languages, not dialects.
[13] I find that often, when we surrender something we love to God’s service, he gives it back to us with greater meaning. Adelid is still a mountain guide, but he is guiding trekkers in the ministry of scripture promotion. He is still fishing; he has just become a “fisher of men” (Matt. 4:19).
[14] The higher the elevation, the more difficult it is logistically to provide essential municipal services such as electricity, water, safe roads leading to larger towns where people can travel to purchase food and other necessities that they cannot grow on their farms and adequate health care. At lower elevations, more municipal services have been provided bringing with them the encroachment of modernity including cellphones, television and the Internet.
[15] “Reflective-effective” is a term I coined to explain the delayed response after returning from one of these trips. It often happens to participants after reflection on the trek days, or weeks after returning to the U.S.
[16] Facetime interview with Roy Seals on January 3, 2024.
[17] Barna, Impact 360, “Gen Z,” 26. “Among American Christian Evangelicals of all ages, opinion is evenly divided on the importance of personal evangelism: 53% agree it is very important to personally encourage non-Christians to trust Jesus Christ as their Savior, but 47% disagree. How can young people be expected to share their faith when the adults in their lives may not even see this as important?”
[18] CM Global stands for Campus Ministries Global. “CM Global is aimed at encouraging students to act out of an overflow of God’s heart and purposes for peoples of all nations. Our service abroad trips give students the opportunity to share God’s love, strengthen their faith, and broaden their perspectives. Previous trips have included: Brazil, Peru, Cambodia, Finland, Greece, South Africa, Haiti, Japan, Thailand, and many more!” Mark Kaprive is the director. Student Missions | Palm Beach Atlantic University (pba.edu).
[19] Jason Beaubien, “Peru has the highest COVID death rate. Here’s why,” Morning Edition, NPR, November 27, 2021.
Map 3. Huaraz and Surrounding Area. Courtesy of WeatherForecast.com/locations/Huaraz
[20] Mark Kaprive, from a text message, January 6, 2024. Used with permission.
Image by Pcess609 — Adobe Stock — Asset ID#: 370107361
